


Can't Breathe With the Radio On

by detrimentalavarice



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: A Lot of Death, Angst, Car Accidents, Death, Emotional Roller Coaster, Epilogue, F/M, Gender Dysphoria, Gender or Sex Swap, Heavy Angst, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Sad, So many tags, Suicide, THIS WAS AN EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER, Trans Character, Trans Frank Iero, Transgender, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Yikes, attempt two, but like i actually finished it???, emotional frank iero, frank always makes me cry though, frank makes me cry, gee is pretty cool, i never finish things, is two a lot??, pretty intense tbh, such cringe, this was a really intense fic to write, trans!frank
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-05-28 16:04:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6335362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detrimentalavarice/pseuds/detrimentalavarice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>It’s probably not the best idea to be driving in this state of mind.</em><br/>Frank knows he's a boy: it's so clear in his mind that it hurts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. CONDEMNATION

**Author's Note:**

> hi there, maybe you read this fic before i deleted it, but i've decided to repost it (i changed the format a lil' bit oops sorry) since i think i would like to return to continue writing in this fictional universe. thanks for understanding and the positive reviews this got when i first posted :)) hope you're having a good day.  
> song for this chap is  
> LEVIATHAN - LeATHERMOUTH  
> playlist links:  
> [https://soundcloud.com/alec-lightwood-911413431/sets/cant-breath-with-the-radio-on]  
> [https://open.spotify.com/user/221fezonbakerstreet/playlist/2AabpQIa1GMUgKOt0y6SNn]

It’s probably not the best idea to be driving in this state of mind.

Frank’s head is screaming.

Frank’s head is pounding.

Pure, unadulterated fury in shaking waves

The radio is on, the monotonous voice talking about things that make Frank just one more person. 

Is so unlike his it should hurt

But Frank can’t hear it

Frank can’t hear anything  
He is screaming, he is crying, he is shaking so hard he lets go of the steering wheel. Howls don’t escape his lips, but rather an exodus of them barrage out.

He doesn’t _understand_

Does not get it

But is it really him who is confused or them. Them with their lack of compassion, closed minds, and closed doors to anyone who wasn’t born like them.

Them, born into the face and with a carcass that fit originally

Frank doesn’t get their inhuman callous feelings; that what is between Frank’s legs is more important than Frank’s potential, than his feelings, and his understanding for _his body_ : something so raw, so pure, and so untainted and distinct in his own mind.

He is trembling.

His throat throbs.

His hair flops.

Sweaty angry, tearing black strands 

He scrutinizes the asphalt grey skyline at the end of the highway.

He glares until he doesn’t perceive.

Eyes bleary,

Another batch of tears being produced,

Sick,

Bilious taste in his mouth;

Nauseous at the thought of one more rejection.

And, 

Fueled by rage and thought and a thousand synonyms for worthless, he thumped his foot down upon the pedal

He swerved the wheel

CONDEMNATION


	2. SPECTRUM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New warm socks (the fuzzy type) wrapped in wrapping paper colour of choice to any reader and a hot water bottle to people who leave kudos/ comments! I hope you're having a _beautiful_ week! 
> 
> song for this chapter:  
> ANAESTHETIC - Thomston 
> 
> PLAYLIST:  
> [https://soundcloud.com/alec-lightwood-911413431/sets/cant-breath-with-the-radio-on]  
> [https://open.spotify.com/user/221fezonbakerstreet/playlist/2AabpQIa1GMUgKOt0y6SNn]

SPECTRUM

In stark contrast with the noise of yesterday, it’s silent now.

It’s never made sense in Frank’s head how people find your car in the ditch.

How people look out of their own bubble to perceive things like that; it all seems trivial

Everything.

Sex and gender form one in his mind and spiral 

And churn

Until his stomach whirls

And his head whirls

Everything is spinning

Gender becomes a whole…

_Spectrum_

Everything had had magnitude in his head; he hadn’t really thought of anything else, and now 

Silence

A world that was shouting is mute it’s so beautiful it hurts.

Isn’t that beauty anyway?

Something that makes you feel. Feel more than 

_Yes_ or _No_

Something more intense: something that plays the harp with your heartstrings. Maybe that’s beauty.

The hospital room isn’t beautiful, though. It’s bright with the essence of sterilization. Frank’s nose prickles. His eyes sting. A rush of blood to his head. But it’s silent. The hush isn’t calming, it’s just… there. It fits with the pain.

The pain in his arms, his torso, his legs

Everywhere.

The aching and clanking; something so clean to contain a rusted, broken machine.

Upon further experimentation, resulting in mild grunts as he twisted, turned, tugged on tired hollow limbs, he discovered that he could lift his head, lift it just enough to make out what the room around him contained.

There were four people opposite him, all sleeping. Comatose, eyes closed, lips apart, diverse.

A collection of flowers in white beds.

Frank was the second bed to the window. He found that beautiful too. To his right were two other beds set to accurately mirror the opposite side. The one near the door was empty. The one next to him held yet another with closed eyes. Light flickered over their face, obscuring details: carefully painted mouth, sallow skin.

Frank looked to the final bed next to the window. The final figure wasn’t sleeping. Judging by the way their bed was closer to the light and further from Frank’s, the bed had been repositioned. 

Hunched shoulders

Sad, curled back.

Almost snubbing Frank by the way they were turned away. His eyelashes framed his vision, as Frank squinted.

Their dark hair spilled in a waterfall from the top of a hospital gown. The contrast made it too beautiful to break The Quiet, so Frank watched. And Frank’s thoughts took a hiatus from turning.


	3. HUMMING

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I must admit that Jan is indeed my favourite original character.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there, readers! Oodles of love and endless gratitude to anyone who reads, and a playlist of calming music that makes you feel comfortable and calm for reviewers and givers of kudos.
> 
> song for this chapter:  
> LANDSLIDE by Fleetwood Mac
> 
> PLAYLIST:  
> [https://soundcloud.com/alec-lightwood-911413431/sets/cant-breath-with-the-radio-on]  
> [https://open.spotify.com/user/221fezonbakerstreet/playlist/2AabpQIa1GMUgKOt0y6SNn]

Humming

 _Humming was the main noise heard at the hospital_ , Frank decided.

From the throbbing pain hum of his body, to the mechanical hum of the machines, to the buzzing continuous hum in his head, to the humming of The Patient by The Window.

(That, at least, was Frank’s name for him)

The latter was Frank’s favourite. He could discern songs forgotten in time. Melodies turned slow through chapped lips, and in the Minor Key, through a broken heart. He had considered talking to The Patient By The Window

(Or The Patient With The Black Fountain Hair

Or The Patient Of Great Contrast

Or The Patient Who Stopped The Inevitable – 

Which, in Frank’s head, was his compilation of thoughts – and this made him quite magical) 

But the convex of his posture gave him an unattainable, superior, vulnerable aura: a recluse. Besides, what were Frank’s words that could mend nothing, build nothing, destroy nothing: words that held so little power?

What could said words achieve? Ensure?

Watching The Patient By The Window made Frank feel so small, redundant.

There were things to distract himself with, more thoughts to play with and the patient with the sallow cheeks, who lay next to his left, near the door to converse with.  
Said patient was named Jan.

Jan looked like he was going places. Shoulder length, greasy, dark dyed hair coiled around his neck; an open 

_“Fuck you”_

To the hospital.

Eyes, rimmed with black, mouth comprised of two thin lips pressed tight together over double slender silver rings that slumbered half in his mouth and half out, like the Loch Ness Monster. 

He had tattoos too. Different from Frank’s tattoos, these were a heated, coiling, swirling range of irate tattoos. A hundred different colours. Almost sexual in the way that they curled and spun and turned.

Daring, wordless cursing. When nurses talked about him it was always 

_That punk._

When he mentioned them it was

_The brainwashed fuckers_

Jan was great.

Jan was scary.

And Jan was obsessed with Frank.

 _The thing about Jan,_ , thought Frank, _was that he loved to talk –_

Which, in Frank’s point of view was never a bad thing –but the ego he displayed held so much power it could fight dragons

See, _Jan had been going places,_ but addiction – a common demon in the nowadays – were his steady demise.

It was almost pathetic in the way Jan looked at Frank, desperate eyes, pleading to have someone to tell of the _Glory Days_ of his youth: “Rock n’ roll” and “Livin’ on the edge” were the most elaborated on topics, along with “My fuckin’ glorious band”.

What was more pathetic was the way Frank was so unaware. 

Listening to Jan,

But staring at The Patient By The Window.


	4. STORMLESS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello there! thanks for reading! i hope your day is going swimmingly. I gift beautiful cherry blossom branches (gorgeousness guaranteed for a few weeks!) and all the chocolate i can buy to the lovely people who leave kudos and comments! 
> 
> song for this chapter:  
> CREEP by Radiohead
> 
> PLAYLIST LINKS:  
> [https://soundcloud.com/alec-lightwood-911413431/sets/cant-breath-with-the-radio-on]  
> [https://open.spotify.com/user/221fezonbakerstreet/playlist/2AabpQIa1GMUgKOt0y6SNn]

Stormless

One thing you could never say was that Frank didn’t give life hell.

Frank’s river flooded valleys. It destroyed and filled everything, bled his deluging passions. His energy shook the roots of steadily crafted oak tree rules as he bent, twisted. He was greater heat than the sun, screaming, _Roaring_ , heat lambasting on insubstantial iron rod constructs of ways of life, pushing, pulling back against his push, tearing himself apart, contradictory. A static shock. His intensity was like a conflagration and everything and himself was caught in the middle.

Yet he was as weak as breath against the inundating waves of insecurities and _say no’s_ , all disguised as solace.

Who says no to safe arms, arms as warm as bread that hold you tight and rock you to sleep? 

Frank hemorrhaged his whole self into all that he could, which leads into why he was ensnared by the blank canvas of the Patient by The Window, a new untainted spot to daub with his insides; a better vent than ever before, and words which painted within themselves.

“Why?”

Was the first thing The Patient said.

“Why?”

Curiosity gnawed at the corners of Frank’s mentality.

“Why what?”

The Patient did not turn. The Patient remained stagnant, stayed stiff, stayed stooped.

“Why ‘why’?” came the reply from the glass.

“What?”

“No, not what. Why”

Frank shifted. He saw The Patient’s shoulder quivering. He wanted to move and help, but his bed bound his feet.

The room felt unfilled, Jan’s drool pooled on his pillow, machines _beeped_ and _booped_ , marked a rhythm of breath for the other dormant patients.

Frank closed his eyes as he reclined.

“I don’t understand”

“No, you don’t”

It was a statement, weary, expected. The voice was softer now, almost disappointed.

“If you want to be understood, why don’t you explain? We can’t all see in your brain”.

“No one sees in my brain. I don’t see in my brain”

“You do. The last sentence was a contradiction”

There was silence. Then a shuffling, shifting noise.

Frank opened an eye and was met by two. Inquisitive was the first word that came to mind. Unstable was the second. The Patient’s eyes teetered, he was walking on shoes too big for himself.

“Gonna elaborate on your question?”

The Patient did not answer. He just watched Frank. Frank opened the other eye to get a better look. The silence raked its nails up and down his bare leg. 

He ached to scratch back.

He tried again: “Gotta name?”

“Gerard”

“Huh. I’m Frank”

“Yeah, you are. Right to the point,” came the reply, misunderstanding.

A laugh tickled his tongue and lulled the air and mood.

“No, my _name_ is Frank”

A small grin snuck over the hill of Gerard’s face.

“Can I call you Francis?”

“Only if I can call you Gerald”

Gerard shuddered.

“Frankie?”

“Gee?”

Nods were exchanged, conversation kindled. Frank’s eyes drooped as Gee’s words brushed over something he had read: an article relating to names and heritage. The sound of his words running over his mind.

Dulcet and serene.


	5. JAN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is the epic departure of my favourite character

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there. this is the last chapter i had posted before i deleted my fic last time. see, i think this chapter: this fic: this fictional universe, made me... i don't know. but it's back. and it's continuing (I hope). so here is chapter five for you all. bags and bags of candy of your choice to readers! and armchairs full of towers of books and more books and pillows and squishy cushions to anyone who comments/ leaves kudos! thank you!  
> song for this chap:  
> GIRLS YOUR AGE by Transviolet  
> PLAYLIST:  
> [https://soundcloud.com/alec-lightwood-911413431/sets/cant-breath-with-the-radio-on]  
> [https://open.spotify.com/user/221fezonbakerstreet/playlist/2AabpQIa1GMUgKOt0y6SNn]

TRIGGER WARNINGS: suicide

JAN

How he hated sepia: the way old memories in movies were portrayed as beige, faded, soft music, when, in fact, all Jan could think about was the sharp juxtaposition of it all. Biting. Tail lights on. Cutting gravel on sludge.

STARK WHITE

Flickering. Bold. Charcoal on the snow and fire in an infant’s bedroom.

He wished he didn’t remember. Wished he could stop.

Stop thinking

Stop running

Stop lying

Wished it would slow _UP_

Slow up because it couldn’t slow down because everyone knows down and demise are synonymous.

It keeps spinning 

Jan used to meet standards

_Citius, Altius, Fortius._

But now his feet brush the lion’s jaws

_Citius, Altius, Fortius._

He can’t breathe he can’t move he can’t

_Citius, Altius, Fortius._

He’s back there again, feet slapping roads. Scaling walls. Demon’s teeth licking his ankles. Jan loved to taunt his demons and oh, how the goading turned into something else: oh, how enamored the devil was with Jan. Jan’s lust for chains was unquenchable.

Jan knew he’d catch up eventually, but twenty-four seemed so young. 

He wanted to cry,

Or maybe that was the pills.

He wanted to laugh,

That was definitely the pills.

Awareness: the air. The air around his ankles: the way his sock was caught under one toe. He had imagined it hazy, like the sepia movies, but now Jan feels everything in penetrating contrast.

It’s still moving so _goddamn_ fast. Hunting veins. Silver feels warm on skin. One of the demons claimed a hand

It wasn’t beautiful

It wasn’t.

Jan was so alone. Jan, surrounded by things he couldn’t conquer. Jan. Breath snagging on something invisible

God, he just wanted to _feel._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, i know this chap was a bit fuzzy and weird and .. but i wanted to keep some of the original format of poem-form so sorry(?)  
> (so if this was a bit unclear, jan is dead)


	6. BASTILLE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> everyone tells you about their journey up the mountain, but no one talks about getting back down and the arduous journey home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello (readers? ghosts? the brick wall I'm probably writing to?) i hope you're having a fantastic week. a bundle of aesthetically pleasing photos for all readers and a smattering of paint: water colour for reviewers and kudos-leavers! thank you...  
> song for this chapter is:  
> WISHFUL BEGINNINGS- Bowie  
> Playlist:  
> [https://soundcloud.com/alec-lightwood-911413431/sets/cant-breath-with-the-radio-on]  
> [https://open.spotify.com/user/221fezonbakerstreet/playlist/2AabpQIa1GMUgKOt0y6SNn]

Frank doesn’t understand why Jan is lying on the grey floor, his face, his sunken cheeks molten, blending with linoleum and the grey sterile dirt of nurses’ shoes. Doesn’t understand the scarlet and the cavities in his wrists and lines in places he had never thought of. He’s so caught up in the small details and the way the gore is daubing Jan’s tattooed canvas,

Splatter

Brush

Smear 

Coat,

that he doesn’t even register Jan’s state of nudity. Frank will later think back on this, overanalyzing and dissecting memories and wonder if this was his final defiance, not to the nurses or doctors per se; their observation of naked bodies (corpses) is quotidian, but perhaps to himself: to his demons and to everyone who told him he could. A sort of sprinkle of his energy as a farewell as one might sprinkle pepper into soup.

But for now, all he sees is the way his wan skin that seemed alive with rage is washed out and old on the floor. 

As the doctor leads him away, Frank wonders just how long it will take for the skin to strip and melt away from Jan’s face altogether.

No one really talks about the way the doctors’ easy strides and passive faces took Jan’s body away. In fact no one really talks about Jan at all. Frank wonders if he’s the only one with a _tornado_ in his brain:

Thinking

Screeching

Demanding answers to a question that can’t even form itself from among the chaos and oh my god Frank’s head is a veritable tempest of questions with no answers.

His equanimity is a tiny house on the prairie and the gale is almost in advent and he knows there’s no Dorothy in that house, no savior. This house is going to gash and scratch and rip and split and _zip_ itself into a million microscopic pieces. One of them may become a splinter in someone’s hand. Nothing more.

Frank can’t talk, won’t talk.

But it’s okay, because Gee doesn’t either. They both face the vacant infirmary bed until Gee’s familiar hum-sing starts up again, deep and rough around the edges like it had been drawn in grotty charcoal and smudged again and again.


	7. boyman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> could you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello there, lovelies, last chapter, i think. love to all who read, and blankets and your favourite TV show/ movie marathon to kudos-leavers/ commenters. thanks for joining me in this dumb story (and complete emotional rollercoaster.  
> Last song:  
> OBLIVION- Bastille  
> (this was really hard to chose and it's not quite right but i need something and g od thi s song at a high volume, high concentrated and oh god)  
> PLAYLIST LINKS:  
> [https://soundcloud.com/alec-lightwood-911413431/sets/cant-breath-with-the-radio-on]  
> [https://open.spotify.com/user/221fezonbakerstreet/playlist/2AabpQIa1GMUgKOt0y6SNn]

Frank had never looked away from him before.

Eye’s stabbing eyes, challenging eyes, daring eyes, but understanding eyes, and eyes of so much verve and drive and ideas they could burn up the galaxy. 

But now they’re transfixed on the wall opposite, glazed with a layer of melded transpiration, and frosted with the inability to look back. The wall is not giving him a similar regard. The wall is but a wall. Grey, ordinary, dotted with sweat, spat on with dust, and licked with lines of something indistinguishable. Roots of crevices and crannies punctuate and dance along the borders and extend to the centre. 

Frank had always looked back.

Gerard wonders if they should stop. If this was too much. If this was enough to change this world: to help a deserted boy, a broken boy, a man who has been told he was anything but. Gerard deliberates if he has breached him; broken him like one might snap the limb off a favourite toy: maybe this one of his transgressions.

Frank’s head is convulsing. He feels so ashamed of his body he can’t breathe. He can feel fingers smoothing his shaking skin at his waist and he is a conman, a man who put himself behind bars, dirty, wrong and so flawed he is a travesty. He wishes he could go home, but it hits him how he has none. In fact, the closest thing he has to “home” is here in this room with its cracked walls and the beautiful person, who’s words make him smile and smile makes him cry, body wracking and shredding everything it owns, suddenly makes him stop.

Frank is at home.

Frank is crying at home.

Frank is a boy.

Gerard loves Frank.

Frank cannot do this.

Could you?

Could you hemorrhage your passion into every riff of life and still keep breathing?

Gee can sense something has changed in the way that Frank is holding him. Gerard had been an anchor, something to aid in the shrouding, and now he is a rock, another sinking rock tied to drowningboy Frank’s pants. Frank might let him go and swim to the surface. 

Gerard has indeed broken something. 

Gee clings like a bat to Frank, mutter-mumble-whispering words. He knows Frank loves words: did Frank love words? He tells Frank he is beautiful, that his body is right, that he is beautiful, that he has a man’s body, that he is beautiful, that his body is perfect, that he is beautiful, that he is beautiful.

Is Frank beautiful?

Frank is so beautiful.

Frank is also not listening. He is making last-breath, desperate eye-contact. Frank is making a decision. He tells Gee that he loves him. He doesn’t mean it. What are words anyway? This is trivial; sex is trivial. 

Frank is going driving tomorrow by the cliffs. Tomorrow he is going to do it properly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it would mean the _world_ to me to get some reviews so if you want to do that, it'd be appreciated!  
>  much love and thanks a million billion for reading,  
> DETRIMENTALAVARICE


	8. EPILOGUE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Came across this again and missed it a bit. Here's just a bit more.

EPILOGUE

It’s a surprisingly crisp May afternoon and Gerard sits, legs folded carefully with the haphazardly-thrown sketchbook slung across them, at the dirty window seat at the coffee shop. A bell rings as the door opens. People are spewing in and out, circulating around and around a pattern, a beat, a dance everyone seems to love. Gerard’s not part of the dance. 

But he could be.

The sleeves of the denim jacket draped over his shoulder suddenly tumble and smear the charcoal.

 _Goddammit_.

The sketch in itself is quite extraordinary. Sweeping, scraping lines staining yellowing paper with the image of a cliff. At the pinnacle of said cliff is a corroded car, scraped, stained, oxidized, tarnished. It is planted as if a nudge of the tongue would thrust it plummeting off the brink. It would look remarkably lonely apart from the figure next to it. The figure stands stooped, vaguely masculine with short hair and a boxed waist, but blurred through ages of faded memories.

A waltzing chime sounds from the doorway of the shop and a powerful figure enters. Gerard, immersed in art, doesn’t even look up.

He is therefore startled when a curvaceous leg brushes his under the table. A tiny grin subconsciously occurs on his face as he sees Lyn Z. 

Tall, ingenuous, facetious, and devastatingly pretty, Lyn Z is the epitome of a flawless girlfriend. But Gerard hasn’t ever told her, doesn’t know how to tell her, doesn’t feel ready to tell her, about Frank.

Her lips squish together, only slightly – like she thinks he won’t notice, as her eyes find his sketch. 

“You want to talk about it?” she asks. As if it is that simple. To open his mouth and try and convey an image of _Frank_ through vibrations and various noises. He supposes it is, really. 

Who was Frank? Another trans suicide victim with too many spinning planets spinning around and around, shoved, packed, rammed and wedged into his brain? Was he _Drowningboy_ Frank? Tragic Frank?

 _No_ , Gerard realizes. _No, Frank was anything but tragic. Frank was fury and passion, and pure and unadulterated, uncontrollable_

 _Inconceivable_

LOVE

_Do you want to talk about it?_

Gerard wants desperately.

Instead he shakes his head and reaches across the Formica table to clutch her hand and laces his fingers carefully, one by one, through hers. She is the most beautiful girl he has ever known. 

But he will never tell her that he loves her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Kudos and feedback is VERY MUCH appreciated!!!


End file.
